The Norton Affect
by Nightjar
Summary: [OneShot] 'At some point in the year 1996, Harry Potter died.' [HarryGinny, HarryOFC... er... if you want to think of it that way] [PreHBP]


Miss Moony would like to say that she doesn't own Harry Potter and that she had no help with this story from Miss Wormtail, Miss Padfoot or Miss Prongs.

Harry is OOC for a reason, and I am fully aware that Cora is a Mary-Sue, so don't bother informing me of it. However, 99.9 percent guaranteed to be unlike any other Sue you've come across.

An idea that I had before _the Half Blood Prince_ came out. It's developed a bit since then, but it still won't comply with the Horcrux-idea from HBP. So, AU, basically.

------- I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good -------

**The Norton Affect**

At some point in the year 1996, Harry Potter died. He left no descendants; no one to carry on the battle in his place, and the hope of the Light was shattered. The fact of the matter was that he wasn't strong enough, clever enough, and he hadn't had enough training to be able to fight the Dark Lord. And so, when he went out to battle, he was thoroughly trounced.

But that was ancient history.

-------

It was the year 2061, and the world was in a state of decay. Lord Voldemort – old man that he was – was on the brink of immortality, and no one could find the energy to fight him any more.

There was, as most people knew, a hidden community who called themselves the Children of the Phoenix: a group of rebels, who would live out their lives away from the prying eyes of the Dark Lord and his servants. These people were the last remnants of the Light organisation which had once been the Order of the Phoenix.

Undoubtedly, the Dark Lord would like to find them, and squash them like cockroaches beneath his feet, but none of his servants seemed capable of finding them. Cora was different from the rest though. Cora was special. And Cora knew where they were.

Cora Norton was the middle daughter of Rabastan Lestrange's bastard daughter. Her blood wasn't as pure as her grandfather's, but she made up for it – in the Dark Lord's eyes – with power. She was one day to take over from her mother – who took over from Cora's great-aunt Bellatrix – as the Dark Lord's mistress and his most trusted servant.

This was because Cora was the first Black Magic Mage who had been born into the wizarding world in three centuries. She didn't know much about her abilities, and, considering the deeds that other Black Magic Mages had done, her own power was rather feeble. But they would serve their purpose: they would see a member of the Line of Lestrange at the most prominent position that existed in the world, next to that of the Dark Lord himself.

She surprised her family though, by making it perfectly clear (though never saying it outright) that this was not where she wanted to be. Which is where our story starts.

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Cora Norton ran away from home when she was fourteen. She had originally planned to head straight for what used to be platform nine and three quarters, where the Phoenix City entrance was.

But she was a Death Eater, and she knew that they would not accept her without proof of her loyalties. So she decided on a grand gesture, and first headed to where the Light's lost hero had been buried.

Her magic surged around her as she dug, a prickling of fear running through her when she thought of what Harry Potter might look like after sixty-five years of being dead. It was with relief that her theory was confirmed: those killed by the killing curse didn't decay like normal corpses did.

The spell only took a minimal amount of her magic; her Black Magic was rather more drained. But it was complete, and as she stared down at the teenage hero lying in his coffin, she was unsurprised to see sea-green eyes blink open and stare at her from under coal coloured, floppy hair.

He smiled. 'Hello,' he said. 'Would you mind telling me why I'm in a coffin?'

-------

Harry's lightning-shaped scar was directly in the middle of his forehead. It glowed, sometimes, when he received visions from the Dark Lord – not often, though.

It hadn't taken long for Harry to profess his undying love to her, either. But this was all well and good. She had brought him back to life with her Necromancy abilities: of course he loved her.

They reached the Phoenix City after a few days, and they were welcomed with open eyes. The elderly Ginevra Weasley tottered out, and her eyes widened in alarm when she spotted Harry. 'You look different without your glasses,' she told him, and he smiled.

'I suppose my eyesight must have improved with death,' he answered. Cora raised an eyebrow: she hadn't known he wore glasses. 'Weasley, this is Cora, my girlfriend.'

Miss Weasley regarded Cora with an odd glint in her eyes then she looked back at Harry. 'I'm still Ginny, Harry. It's not been so long that you need call me by my surname. We're family, remember?'

Cora knew. Cora knew how Miss Weasley had once been Harry's girlfriend, and how everyone had expected him to one day marry her. A spark of loathing ran through her. How could Harry – _her_ Harry – have ever loved the ancient creature that stood before him now?

He hadn't, she knew. He couldn't have. And she was proven right when she overheard them talking together a few days later.

'You've changed, Harry. I can still tell that, even if my memory of you is a bit blurred around the edges.' There was a gentle, longing look on her face, and Harry looked up sharply.

He said, 'I didn't love you, you know. I couldn't have. My whole life, I've been waiting for Cora.'

A hurt look flashed briefly through Miss Weasley's eyes, and triumph filled Cora's. 'I love her,' Harry finished.

Miss Weasley looked down and met his eyes. 'I can tell,' she said.

-------

Reed Mallory and Pollux and Castor Weasley were practically inseparable. Reed was a Mudblood, and Pollux and Castor were the grandsons of Bill and Fleur Weasley.

The three of them cornered Cora in her second week at the Phoenix City, after days on end of suspicious staring. 'What did you do?' Castor demanded fiercely, and Cora was taken aback.

'That's not Harry Potter,' Reed said in a rather more reasonable tone. 'Miss Ginny might be going blind, but we've seen pictures of Harry Potter, and he looks nothing like that fake you've got prancing around. He should have darker eyes, and glasses, and messier hair, and his scar's on the wrong side of his face. And he's not supposed to be anywhere _near_ that pretty.'

Cora veered backwards, as if struck. 'He is Harry,' she repeated. 'He _is_ Harry. And he loves me.'

The twins Pollux and Castor regarded her silently for a moment, taking in her lush black hair and mysterious brown eyes. 'Harry Potter was head over heels for Aunt Ginny,' Castor told her. 'He'd never have claimed otherwise.'

'You're not fooling anyone, you know,' Pollux said. 'We can see the magic you've got spun around – whoever it is. And all those glamours you're using on yourself. Just- just…' he gulped. 'Just stop pretending, okay.'

And then he ran, and the other two boys went after him, leaving Cora behind, feeling distinctly unnerved, and never more unsure of herself.

-------

It took another three weeks for Reed, Pollux and Castor to chase her away with all their remarks. With every day, she turned into more of a nervous wreck, and every time Harry approached her, she turned away.

He forgave her, though. He always did.

And when she finally ran, she was grateful that he somehow knew, and followed, even though there was no way that anyone could have found out about it.

'Foolish child,' the Dark Lord hissed angrily when he found her sleeping in a field. 'Adrienne, administer the veritaserum.'

Cora's little sister hurried to obey, and she only briefly noted Harry sitting a few metres away from her, fighting against the ropes that held him there.

'Where have you been? Where is the Phoenix City? What are the Children planning?' Adrienne asked, prompted by the Dark Lord.

Cora answered each question truthfully, and then the Dark Lord had her kiss his pet dementor.

-------

Adrienne Norton shook her head sadly, watching her sister as the glamours fell around her. Dull brown eyes shone out of sunken-in sockets; her hair was limp and unkempt; her skin was wasted and yellowing.

She looked to the Boy-Who-Lived, and then she screamed. A sixty-year-old, rotting skeleton stared back at her. Short, untidy black hair was strewn across its head, but there were no eyes in those sockets, and the skin was barely there anymore. The ropes she'd conjured to hold him were draped uselessly across his ribs.

The Dark Lord looked around, and smiled in his own, cold, sinister way. 'You have done well, Norton,' he told Adrienne, and as was proper, she knelt and kissed his robes, muttering her thanks for the praise, swallowing the vomit that was threatening to come up her throat. 'Undoubtedly, your sister will make an exceptional mistress, once you've cleaned her up a little.'

She leapt to her feet and bowed, immediately leaving the Dark Lord, and taking her sister's soulless body with her. Various cosmetic potions were perched around the Dark Lord's potions lab, and they soon found themselves being injected into Cora's bloodstream.

'Now all you need is a bath,' Adrienne said, her voice unsteady. It was true – the rest of the Dark Order would be envious of such an obedient mistress: one who would never argue, or fight back, with a minimum of fuss and legs wide open. Maybe Cora would even bear the Dark Lord an heir one day, but Adrienne dreaded to think of it.

For a moment, she stopped to wonder what fate awaited the Children of the Phoenix, but then stopped, knowing that this train of thought was pointless: the Dark Lord would deal with them as he pleased.

-------

An old, black, leather-bound book lay open on Adrienne's worktop. It read,

_Abilities of Black Magic Mages can include any of the following: Necromancy, Soul-Stealing, Spell-Stealing, Camouflage, etc (a complete list of abilities can be found in chapter 7). The average Mage will have two or three of these abilities, but the more powerful abilities (such as Soul-Stealing and Necromancy) have been known to, upon occasion, affect the user's mental health._

Symptoms of unstable Magics include delusions of grandeur, unconscious use of glamour spells, and the belief that abilities such as Necromancy can restore real life, instead of creating animated corpses.

Adrienne folded her arms across the dusty tome, and fell asleep to the lulling noises of the screams of the Children of the Phoenix in their prison cells, and her own tears.


End file.
